


Balance

by lisabounce



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 15:55:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12436236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lisabounce/pseuds/lisabounce
Summary: This is not the way she would have done it, on this station that she knows every inch of, sees now and torn down and ruined in the wake of the Cardassians and half built anew again.





	Balance

See, the problem is that Ezri knows, bone deep, that this is a terrible idea. 

Save the symbiont – save Dax – well, she’s Trill. It’s what has to be done. What is always done. Not every Trill joins but every Trill knows. It’s what had to be done. 

Trained as a counsellor but not as a candidate for joining. When it’s over, there is a comm with a list of books and articles and self help guides. This is not unknown. This is charted territory. This is not an ideal situation. 

She had read most of them. Or a version of them while studying. Trill psychology is very good at delving into the line between me and previously me and now me. Not so great on anxiety, depression and trauma. Joining… is a joyous occasion. Mostly, that is covered in elective subjects, or, in Starfleet in the “Human Psychology” electives. Humans are pretty good at introspection. Three, Audrid had written.  
She throws the padd at the wall in disgust. 

They – she- go to Trill. Go to Earth. Come back to Deep Space 9. 

This is a bad idea. Find an anchor, the books say. She does. Jadzia and Curzon thought highly of Sisko. Very highly. It’s easy to see why. Curzon could stand to be a little less loud.

 

He’s salt in an open wound. A man who sees Curzon before he sees this flesh, this body. It’s the opposite of Trill, where the body is acknowledged and a line is drawn between here and there because there are rules. 

Ezri wakes remembering her wives. Her husbands. Children. Build a wall. She does and Sisko breaks it down, again, calling her Curzon and that is not her name. Not any more. 

 

Blood wine tastes sour now. Maybe it always did. Maybe Curzon and Jadzia just drank it for the look of things, because Klingons will fight you before they admit that or after admitting that. Or because they admitted it. 

 

And really, that explains everything Ezri needed to know about Curzon and Jadzia and they’re just so loud. Deep Space 9 is Jadzia’s place and these people are not Trill. They don’t know how to draw the line between the me that was and now.  
She learns to lie in bed in the mornings until Torias stops screaming in remembered pain and fear and she can stand and the feel the stations spin fades under her feet. 

Jadzia and Curzon – the ghosts of themselves – don’t remember this. Don’t wake screaming in flames as the shuttle lands. Maybe it’s not Torias. It is possible that imagination and conjecture filled in the blanks. It feels real. 

Mostly, right now, she wants to strangle half this station, because these people are not Trill. She knows how to reach for things with her other hand and relearns the length of her arms, her legs. 

Mirrors are hard. This face is not her face. It is her face. It is not their face.  
Phantom pressure. Emony helps. Does not help. Understands balance and physicality in a way that none of the others ever have but understands it for a body that is not this body.

Worf is… there are laws they would have to follow, if he were Trill. 

This is being joined. 

This is not the way she would have done it, on this station that she knows every inch of, sees now and torn down and ruined in the wake of the Cardassians and half built anew and this is the worst place to be because Starfleet is not a Trill organisation because if it was, they would never have allowed this body to set foot on the station again. 

Continuing on here is still a terrible idea. They accept it, they go to work, they walk the line. They balance.

She balances. The one within the they.


End file.
